Memory Writing Prompt – My First Prom

Memory Writing Prompt – My First Prom

Since it is prom season I thought I’d take a trip back in time to the first prom I went to and see what I can remember.

It was called a Sophomore Fling, I think. It was 1974 and I was going to Ygnacio Valley High School. I had gone to Mt. Diablo for my freshman year and then my mom had us move to an apartment that was smack dab on the border between Mt. Diablo and Ygnacio Valley. I didn’t have any close friends at Mt Diablo, no best friend, no boyfriend there. At Ygnacio Valley I had no friends but there was a boy. A boy from the roller rink that I had had a crush on for years and who finally noticed me. So I switched schools for one year, going back to Mt. Diablo for my junior and senior year and causing a few rumors (untrue) about why I was gone.

I don’t remember the dance (I’m sure all we did is hug each other while we went around in circles. Neither one of us was a fast dancing kind of person.) But I remember how it made me feel.

Kevin was driving by then and I am pretty sure he drove us to the dance but maybe not since the prom pic was taken in his parent’s living room. Or maybe he came and got me and took me over to his parent’s for the obligatory picture taking. He wore a deep green slacks and a green patterned sport coat (he had red hair and it was the perfect color on him). The dress, well, I don’t know if I fell in love with it and talked my mom into it or she or my grandmother just bought through the catalog. Looking back now I think maybe they bought it for me with the idea of covering as much of me up as possible. Which is really funny if you think about how I spent 7 days a week at the roller rink wearing stuff like this.

I don’t remember the music or the decorations or anything else about that dance except that it made me feel, for a little while, like a princess.

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I only went to one prom–my senior year–and I looked like a total dork with a yellow ruffley Bopeep dress (were those ever actually fashionable?) but I didn’t care because I was in love with my date and that was all that mattered. Oh yeah, and I think we danced?

I was a total reject in high school. So my first dance was in Vienna, my junior year abroad. I danced in a pink marble palace, in the arms of a handsome Austrian guy, in a gown I designed and made from silk a friend’s mom sent me (I was too poor to actually buy a dress). I wrapped my long hair in rags so it hung down my back in corkscrew curls. I did buy black satin gloves to the elbows, though I skipped meals for days to make up for them.

It was sheer heaven, waltzing all night to the strains of a real orchestra, my skirts whirling out.

I was just not that social in school, and going to the school dance seemed like a great way (to me) to just reinforce my social awkwardness. So, I made a decision not to go, because I didn’t need to put myself through that.

My mother always bought me a dress, and gave me some money, and sent me to the dances, I just… never made it there. I stashed a change of clothes somewhere, changed and went to go do my own thing.

Sure, I got caught (a lot, actually. It comes from having popular sisters in high school who refused to lie about me being there.) but those nights used to be peaceful for me.

I even have a vague memory of being asked to one of the dances (I wanna say homecoming, but maybe it was… Halloween? They’re around the same time.) but I declined the invitation, and went and did my own thing.

My first prom brings back bittersweet memories. I’d wanted to go with one boy, but we got our communication crossed, he misunderstood what I said, and wound up asking someone else.

I went with a good friend, and we sat at the same table with my heart’s desire and his date. I danced with both boys, but M.H.D. got most of my attention, and the lion’s share of the dances. To this day I cannot fathom why I didn’t straighten out the misunderstanding so we could be together that night.

I wore a mint green dress with a deep “v” neck in the front and back. The year was 1976, My date wore a white tux (yes, white! LOL). Disco was coming in, and although we usually loved rock, that night we discoed til our feet would no longer move.

I still keep in touch with M.H.D. but we are just friends. Haven’t thought about the prom in years, but now I’ll have to ask him about our miscommunication. Wonder what he’ll say after all these years?

I love your dress! I love “retro” stuff from the 70’s…much better than that nightmare I grew up in known as the 80’s. Black eyeliner. Cyndi Lauper. Oh yeah.

I went to a Christian school, so we didn’t have dances or a “prom”…it was a Jr.-Sr. banquet. I worked as a waitress after school and saved up the money to buy my dress, shoes, a small strand of pearls – the whole shebang. I didn’t have a boyfriend at the time, but an underclassman (10th grade) said he’d like to take me. He was really sweet. One day before the prom he developed some type of lung problem and was hospitalized. A friend of mine – who was going with a guy friend and a few others – said that I could hang out with them. So, I did.

When I arrived at the “occasion”, the guy’s sister was there with the most beautiful corsage I had ever seen – three big pink carnations with baby’s breath and a delicate butterfly with pearls on it’s wings. I don’t remember what we did afterwards. I think we went somewhere and had ice cream in our dresses and suits. At any rate, it was a nice night.

I went to a tiny school that had been all girls and went co-ed, so we had very few guys, and it was common for people to go stag to the junior/senior prom. As an angsty teen, I was anti-prom, but since juniors organized the event, I figured I’d go and hang out with my friends.

I’d recently become close friends with a guy in our little group. Everyone kept asking if we’d go together, but my response was a big Whatever. We weren’t dating, contrary to popular belief. We didn’t believe in that, either – nothing so conformist or mundane. Rarr.

Another good friend, however, believed in prom. She’d asked a senior to go, but he said no, so she asked my friend on my behalf without telling me in advance! I was mortified. What if he got the wrong idea of our fairly new but still very intense friendship? She said she wasn’t going to have a date to prom, and even if I didn’t care, I could have a date and would if she had anything to do with it.

So I went to prom. With a date. In a strappy, slinky, burgundy dress (my favorite color at the time). We hung out with our group of friends, and the world did not end. Nor did our teen angst cards get taken away. We slow danced to Lady in Red and I thought that burgundy was kind of like red, only cooler.

The following year, we finally got over ourselves and were together but didn’t go to prom as a couple. Another friend of ours really wanted a prom date, so we decided he should take her. I still didn’t care about prom and went stag. We had our group of friends, one of whom decorated her dress with Christmas tree lights and wore a battery pack so she twinkled all night. With friends like that, who needed an official date? Anyway, the after prom party was at his place, and as soon as the dance ended, couples got straightened out 🙂

My first prom was my senior prom. It was also my first DATE! In high school, I was in the “drama gang” and everything we did was in groups. So when it came to prom, what was I to do? A friend said he knew a guy from his church who also wanted to go but had just broken up with his girlfriend. Would I go with him?
The guy called and agreed. The night he showed up was another story. He had a huge crush on me. We were NOTHING alike. AND when we walked in the door to the gym for the dance . . . “Hey – where’s the stuff?” asked a bunch of guys as they gathered around my date. Eegads. A drug dealer. I spent the rest of the night making up reasons why I could NOT go on Make Out Lane with this creep and how my dad would kill him if I was late.

Prom was the worst night of my life. But I learned my lesson. NEVER go out with a guy just to get somewhere. The other option I had was to go camping with a bunch of date-less girls. Think of it. Boy, would I have had FUN if I would have done that! (but no story )